Electrical lighting has become commonplace in modern society. Electrical lighting devices are commonly deployed, for example, in homes, buildings of commercial and other enterprise establishments, as well as in various outdoor settings. Even in a relatively small state or country, there may be millions of lighting devices in use.
Traditional lighting devices have tended to be relatively dumb, in that they can be turned ON and OFF, and in some cases may be dimmed, usually in response to user activation of a relatively simple input device. Lighting devices have also been controlled in response to ambient light detectors that turn on a light only when ambient light is at or below a threshold (e.g. as the sun goes down) and in response to occupancy sensors (e.g. to turn on light when a room is occupied and to turn the light off when the room is no longer occupied for some period). Often traditional lighting devices are controlled individually or as relatively small groups at separate locations.
With the advent of modern electronics has come advancement, including advances in the types of light sources as well as advancements in networking and control capabilities of the lighting devices. For example, solid state sources are now becoming a commercially viable alternative to traditional light sources such as incandescent and fluorescent lamps. By nature, solid state light sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) are easily controlled by electronic logic circuits or processors. Electronic controls have also been developed for other types of light sources. As increased processing capacity finds its way into the lighting devices, it becomes relatively easy to incorporate associated communications capabilities, e.g. to allow lighting devices to communicate with system control elements and/or with each other. In this way, advanced electronics in the lighting devices as well as the associated control elements have facilitated more sophisticated lighting control algorithms as well as increased networking of lighting devices.
Sensing and network communications have focused on the lighting functions/applications of the lighting devices. For example, sensors may be provided in a lighting device to detect parameters relevant to control operation of the lighting device, and the processor in the device controls the source(s) of the device in response to the sensor inputs. Alternatively or in addition, a communication interface in each of a number of networked lighting devices may allow communication about the status of each lighting device to a system control center. A programmed computer or a person at the control center then may be able to send commands to individual lighting devices or to groups of lighting devices, for example, based on a decision responsive to one or more conditions sensed by some or all of the lighting devices.
However, these advances in lighting devices and networked systems have mainly addressed aspects of the lighting provided by the lighting devices. For example, lighting devices may be adjusted, turned ON and/or turned OFF in response to user input or based on monitored conditions, either by processor logic within the device(s) or commands from a local controller (e.g. configured as a control panel on a wall) or from a central control.
The increasingly sophisticated electronics associated with lighting often now include a central processing device as well as memory for program and data storage within each of many lighting devices. Where the lighting devices are networked, each device also includes some form of communication interface, to enable the desired communication with other lighting devices, in-room lighting controllers and/or with networked control computers.
The processing, memory and communication elements of the lighting devices involve costs, when purchasing and deploying the lighting devices. Building an installed base of such equipment, with substantial numbers of lighting devices each having sophisticated electronics, incurs a financial investment. In many cases, the electronics are a substantial cost for each lighting device, and that cost may be multiplied by a large number of such devices in an extensive networked implementation owned by or operated for a large enterprise. Similar processing and memory resources may be included in other system elements, such as lighting controllers in the various areas of the premises within which the system is installed. Despite the infrastructure cost, the memory and processing resources may be idle for substantial periods of time, e.g. when lighting devices are OFF for extended periods or even during operations when individual lighting devices and/or lighting controllers are not actively communicating or not using full processing or memory resources (for example during intervals between substantial device setting changes, which may require execution of a processing intensive algorithm). In addition to the infrastructure costs for such resources in the lighting devices and/or controllers, such a system may include additional computer resources for implementation of a more centralized control function.
Hence, there is room for improvement in the usage of the resources in various elements of a networked intelligent lighting system, e.g. to increase the usage of costly processing and memory resources in networked elements and/or to reduce or eliminate the need for additional computer hardware to host a centralized control functionality.